Croydon: Longtime Incumbent Defeats Newcomer for Selectboard

Croydon — The incumbent triumphed yesterday, as John Clements decisively locked up his third consecutive three-year Selectboard seat.

Clements, a retired transportation engineering consultant, garnered 99 votes. His opponent, John Enos, who decided to run for office because of his dissatisfaction over his property’s assessed value, received 19 votes. In a previous interview, Enos, 58, said he paid for an appraisal last year that found his property had decreased in value by $10,000 in the prior 10 months.

Clements, 82, first joined a selectboard — in Peterborough, N.H. — during the 1960s. Since then, he has served as New Hampshire’s highway commissioner, spent a term as chairman of Croydon’s Zoning Board of Adjustment and worked for Newport firearms manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. and New Hampshire Ball Bearings in Peterborough. He’s lived in Croydon for seven years.

Enos is a political newcomer. He last worked in 2000 as a telephone technician, but has been slowed in recent years by a disability.

In a previous interview, he said he might weigh another run for office next year.

At Town Hall on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m., voters will take on 12 warrant articles, two of which are focused on raising money for road repairs: one for Loverin Hill Road seeks $32,000 to pay for “crack fill and chip seal” to fortify pavement and prevent potholes; the other, for Cash Street, asks for $50,000 for paving.

The overall operating budget is nearly $404,000, an increase of about $16,000 over the current fiscal year. Clements estimated a tax increase of about $50 on a property assessed at $200,000 if the budget passes as written. That doesn’t include the portions of the tax bill ascribed to the school and county, which are set later in the year.